Wednesday, September 25, 2013

After the intense battle between him and Diana, the First Born doesn't
have enough strength to face Apollo who with the help of his Oracles is
able to investigate about his brother's past as well as how his future
connects him to Zeus' throne.

This works as both a continuation and a prologue to Brian Azzarello's
story on Wonder Woman. The first years of the First Born are revealed
and they're pretty interesting to watch, about a man who knows only hate
due to being condemned by a prophecy that his father had to follow, not
to mention that it develops a pretty interesting background for the
next story on Wonder Woman.

One thing though, did the First Born have sex with a hyena? Because if so, ew.

The pencils are handled by ACO this time and he does a fantastic job at
replicating the style that Cliff Chiang created for this series. I would
love to see him as Chiang's replacement if he leaves title.

Excellent issue. This almost compensates for how disappointing was the Cheetah issue from last week (almost).

Amon and Adrianna are two siblings that couldn't have more different
ideologies, they still want the same thing however, the best for their
people and when a descendant of the tyrant Ibac comes to rule their
country they will have no other choice to summon Black Adam back to
life.

This was another impressive collaboration between Geoff Johns and
Sterling Gates. Making both Amon and Adrianna (who were the incarnations
of Osiris and Isis respectively in the previous continuity) the main
characters was a pretty interesting choice, not to mention that it also
sets Black Adam's story for both Forever Evil and the upcoming Shazam
series.

One problem though, one of the protagonists dies but who says that character will stay that way?

Edgar Salazar is doing the art and he has a pretty expressive and detailed work, is pretty appealing.

Another great Shazam issue, the future ongoing looks more and more promising.

Lyssa Drak is reminiscing the story of Sinestro from the book of
Parallax but now that she doesn't have it anymore she will have to take
all that knowledge by herself and at the same time she will learn that
Sinestro's future depends on his people once again.

This was a quite neat issue. Sinestro's past is further explained based
on the little teases that we have seen on Geoff Johns' Green Lantern
series, Matt Kindt does an interesting work at contrasting both the
perspectives from Lyssa Drak and Sinestro even updating some aspects
like how he received his ring and his resolution about it.

I have some complaints though, Kindt's narration lacks a bit of emotion
here, some of the lines are pretty cold and even Hal Jordan's dialogue
seems a bit awkward since Kindt tries to inject a kinda forced "cool"
vibe to it.

Dale Eaglesham does the art here and, my God DC needs to give this man
an ongoing. The backgrounds of Sinestro's past are wonderfully depicted
and his characters are attractive and powerful, let's cross fingers for
his inclusion on the upcoming Sinestro Corps series.

Good issue overall, some complaints here and there but nothing that ruins the experience.

The Outsider tells his own story on Earth 3 as well as the different
aspects from that world and how they influenced in the creation of
Owlman, explaining his interest on the Earth Prime version of Dick
Grayson and his current state.

Geoff Johns and Sterling Gates have done a magnificent job here. Both
authors take hints from previous incarnations of Earth 3 (especially
from Grant Morrison) but they add their own takes and hints to the world
including an interesting depiction of the Joker from that world as well
as Thomas Wayne's origin and his relationship with Superwoman. Plus, it
also has a pretty natural connection to the Forever Evil event, it's a
pretty good little story that works as a stand alone issue and a tie-in.

Symon Kundranski is on the artwork and his grim and gritty pencils fit
the tone of this issue wonderfully. I would love to see this guy in a
noir inspired book.

After spending a while in prison due to his invasion towards the surface world, Ocean Master is now able to go back to help his people but he will soon learn that the surface dwellers might also need him.

This is the second collaboration between Geoff Johns and Tony Bedard and I'm happy to say that this one is an improvement over the previous one. The portrayal of Ocean Master her is much more complex than in any previous incarnation, showing how he's a product of his culture which may make him cruel and cold in some cases but he may also be compasionate towards others.

Art duties belong to Geraldo Borges this time and he actually does a quite good job, some of the scenes and characters are pretty impressive. His style reminds me a lot of Eddy Barrows', I hope he's a lot more consistent though.

Anyway, really good issue. It's amazing how much Ocean Master's character has improved on the reboot.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The world belongs to the Crime Syndicate but what happens to the criminals that doesn't care about world domination.

The Rogues have been at odds since Captain Cold's actions turned them
into metahumans. However, with the Crime Syndicate causing disasters all
over the earth and Cold's sister in peril, The Rogues will have to work
on their differences and try top stop the regime.

Thought this was solid but not particularly impressive. Brian
Buccellato's direction is pretty good as expected but at some points his
dialogue starts becoming repetitive, one would assume that he would
have learned that he shouldn't repeat the word "score" so many times by
now. Still, the portrayal of The Rogues is pretty on point as well as
their motivations to go against the Crime Syndicate.

Patrick Zircher does a fantastic work at hadling pencils, his first few
scenes didn't exactly surprise but his performance on the latter half of
the issue was quite impressive.

Solid enough but I hope the following miniseries improves some aspects.

Black Hand is back to life, at least the kind of live he's accustomed to.

William Hand doesn't remember who he is or the reason behind his current
state, the only he knows is that everything he touches dies and once
that happen he can control them. Now, he will have to find a connection
to his enemy that could hurt him the most.

This was entertaining enough, nothing really mindblowing but a well
written little story about Black Hand. His connection with death is
interestingly explored and Charles Soule does a good job at
investigating his psyche but there's nothing really new or surprising
about his character nor direction.

Alberto Ponticelli's artwork fits the theme of this issue quite well,
I'm not really a fan of his style but here is more than adequate.

Solid enough, I was expecting that Soule would deliver something more inspired though.

The Cheetah is offering different hunts to her Goddess just as she was
indoctrinated to do by her aunt. Now, an unfortunate new Manhunter has
to chase her and he will find that job much more difficult that he
initially thought.

I'm surprised to say that this was kinda underwhelming, John Ostrander's
script is a bit too simplistic. Barbara Minerva was taught to revere
the Goddess of the Hunt but she doesn't show enough personality by
herself to be truly inversted on her journey and this also presents a
reasonable reason to hate Wonder Woman but not a truly personal one, not
to mention that Ostrander repeats the word "hunt" so many times that
the narration starts becoming annoying. I will give him this though, I
like how this goes accord to the fanatic concept of The Cheetah.

Victor Ibañez handles art duties and he does a pretty good job, really
expressive and his storytelling skills are also pretty solid. Pretty
good work there.

This was a bit disappointing I would say. I guess it all depends on First Born now.

The most dangerous mind on earth has finally decided to stop being imprisoned and has returned to his usual business tactics which means using his intellect to force others to do his bidding.

This was actually a quite good story focusing on Lex Luthor, I have only one problem though, it makes his character regress. When Scott Lobdell reintroduced Luthor after the 5 years gap, he presented him as really threatening and powerful mind who only cared about demonstrating that he was the most intelligent man on earth and actually respected Superman as a rival.

On this issue however, we see the typical portrayal of Lex Luthor obsessed with Superman which makes him pretty vain at this point. I suppouse that Charles Soule had to follow the current direction imposed by DC but it just makes Luthor devolve.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

A planet is unfortunate enough to encounter the strange vessel and
trying to stop it, the whole world will have to learn that anyone who
dares to cross Mongul's path will be dealt by him personally.

I have to say that this is probably the best thing I have read from Jim
Starlin so far. The portrayal of Mongul is imposing, brutal and
intelligent and his origin was pretty compelling, not to mention that he
also adds some easter eggs about Alan Moore's For The Man Who Has
Everything and sets Mongul's new direction as an antagonist for the
Green Lantern Corps.

Of course I need to mention Howard Porter's wonderful work here.
Vibrant, powerful and creative, despite that I love Kevin Maguire I'm
getting more and more excited about the inclusion of Porter in Justice
League 3000.

Caitlin Snow was a scientist who loved working in cold temperatures but
after getting in the way of some other greedy scientists from S.T.A.R.
Labs she gets transformed into a being of pure ice whose primal
objective is to try to feel warm again and hopefully go back to normal.

Sterling Gates has created a quite nice origin for this classic
Firestorm villain as well as giving her an understandable motivation and
a sympathetic background. I have to mention that I really appreciate
the research Gates did for this issue, explaining some interesting
aspects from cold to make the story much more satisfying.

Derlis Santacruz was in charge of the pencils in this issue. I didn't
know who he was before but now I'm really interested in his work, he has
a really clean and expressive style that it's a mix between cartoony
and realistic, I really liked it.

Definitely enjoyable. Hope that Gates can keep this kind of work in his
following villains issues.

Harleen Quinzel was forced to follow orders since her childhood and always tried to escape from the rules of society, suddenly she finds herself in a world of madness after interacting with the Arkham Asylum's inmates, especially the Joker who will give her what she always wanted, freedom.

Matt Kindt continues his work on the Suicide Squad's characters before taking the reins of the main title and just like with Deadshot in last week, Kindt understands what makes a character special but also adds some extra layers to make it much more complex.

For the first time since her introduction there's a reason for Harley to become the maniac she is now besides being obsessed with the Joker. She actually always was interested in chaos, she always wanted to do whatever she wanted without caring about anyone, even some of her last work in this demonstrates that she doesn't truly care about her ex-boyfriend, it has always been about herself.

Art duties come from Neil Googe's part whos has a really attractive and cartoony style which fits perfectly in this story, it's a shame he's not the one doing the art on the upcoming Harley Quinn ongoing.

One of the best issues from this week, really excited about Kindt's work on Suicide Squad.

The Main Man has created a horrible reputation and no impostor can take
that away. After accepting different kinds of jobs he's finally able to
met the person from earth who has been searching for a long time.

This is the debut of Marguerite Bennett as a solo writer, does she delivers?

Unfortunately, I have mixed opinions about this. For one, I think Lobo's
portrayal is good enough and the direction they're setting seems to
have potential, it makes you wonder who the guy that has been posing as
Lobo truly is. The biggest problem for me here is the narration, Bennett
has some lines that she keeps repeating and repeating just to prove a
point but they're not particularly good pieces of dialogue and turns the
whole perspective into a pretty awkward place, almost everything that
could have been good was practically ruined by these flaws.

Ben Oliver and Cliff Richards handle the art and they do a solid job at
it. For those worried about Lobo's design, he still looks like a pretty
tough guy, just with shorter hair (I can't believe that I'm actually
adresing this complaint).

What happens when one of the deadliest assassins on earth has lost his principal motivation?

Black Manta is free thanks to the new reign of the Crime Syndicate but
now that Aquaman is gone where can he direct his anger? The answer will
suddenly appear once that Ultraman steps on his life.

This the first of two collaborations between Geoff Johns and Tony Bedard
on Aquaman. However, Bedard hasn't delivered a truly impressive job
since the New 52 started so my expectaions about him are pretty low
already, so what's my opinion about this issue? I thought it worked...
for the most part.

Bedard's portrayal of Black Manta is faithful enough to his current
interpretation, the action he commits, his motivations and past, all of
it is well explained, the narration was solid too. The problem is that
this issue felt like a pretty short read and Manta's motivation for
going against the Crime Syndicate is a bit too simplistic, it does the
job though.

Claude St. Aubin is doing the pencils in this issue and his work looks
pretty good, but at times it looked kinda inconsistent, especially at
the depiction of some villains.

Daniel West has always resented his father due to his abusive treat
towards him and his sister and after the events that changed his life on
the gorilla invasion he at last has the power to go backwards in time
and try to fix his past and mistakes. There's a catch though, the past
is apparently not what he remembered.

Welp, we already figured this a long time ago, Daniel West is The
Reverse-Flash. The revelation itself was well handled though, Daniel's
motivations are interestinly explained as well as his relationship with
his sister, Iris West. The way how he gained his powers makes sense too
in retrospective and you can blame The Rogues for that.

I was disappointing that Manapul was not the one doing the pencils but
Scott Hepburn manages to deliver a solid work, although I wish his
characters looked better.

Yeah, pretty good issue. The Reverse-Flash storyline continues to be the
best yet from this series which makes the recent announcement about
this creative team leaving much more disappointing.

A long time ago a family worked at a Slaughterhouse, their circunstances
were hard but the father still endured until one tragic day when his
wife commited suicide due to the constant abuses of their boss which
prompted his husband into becoming a murderer and killing himself. Now,
Solomon Grundy has returned from his exile in the moon thanks to Green
Lantern and everything that crosses into his path ends dead.

Matt Kindt handles the new origin of Solomon Grundy and he does a
wonderful job at creating an interesting background without
contradicting what happened in the previous issues of Earth 2. He
actually made Grundy a sympathetic character instead of just a rooting
zombie looking for destruction and death, not to mention that he
introduces a logical reason behind his famous phrase and possibly a
future sub-plot for him, what happened to his son?

Aaron Lopresti does the art and his work stunning, pretty detailed and emotional, I missed him.

Contender for one of the best issues from this week, funny that its competition is another issue written by Matt Kindt

Monday, September 9, 2013

Because I swear to God I can't find one, at least not now that Legion of Super-Heroes has been cancelled.

Do you wonder what both titles have in common? They have Paul Levitz as their writer. During the last couple of years and even before the New 52 I have been amazed about the amount of work that DC has given to this guy despite that his works doesn't receive neither critical nor sales success.

This may be due to his history. Paul Levitz has a long list of DC works including a classic Legion of Super-Heroes run from the 80's which was also drawn, and probably co-written, by Keith Giffen which became an instant achievement in both acclaim and sales. This might have been one of the reasons why DC gave Levitz the reigns of Legion of Super-Heroes relaunch in the New 52 as well as the recreation of both Power Girl and Huntress in Worlds' Finest.

Now you may believe that this is an article made exclusively to complaint about Paul Levitz but I can't assure you that it isn't despite of evidence of the contrary (I'm saving that topic for another day in fact). This article has been created to criticize the current New 52 Worlds' Finest series due to its lackluster quality and to try to find a way to make it improve.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Yeah, I've just read the most recent news about the departure of J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman from Batwoman due to editorial interference.

Now, I don't plan to dwell into the rumour that DC has an antigay policy due that this supposedly happened because they didn't allow Kate Kane, the protagonist and her girlfriend, Maggie Sawyer, to get married since past history points to the contrary anyway.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Is it the dead of his family due to a random event? Or is it something
more? He has been trying to justify why he survived for years without
finding any answer and even when he's able to kill the persons guilty
for his tragedy he still feels empty, his life is already set.

The first thing you must know is that this is a completely different
origin than the one Deadshot had in his previous incarnation. On his
past incarnation he was a child who hated both his parents and tries to
murder one of them but instead he kills his brother, the only person who
truly supported him. On the other hand, here we have the a child
surviving from a shooting and tries to find a reason for it. I would say
that this origin is not exactly better than the previous one since the
latter was the more complex of the two and also was one of John
Ostrander's best stories.

However, this new origin actually goes accord to the New 52 Deadshot who
is not the classic psychopath but a character who shows more emotions
and Matt Kindt does a solid job a trying to emplain the reasons behind
his actions. The writing itself is okay but not really impressive, at
some points was pretty complex but at others it was kinda lacking in
emotion.

The art is handled but both Sami Basri and Keith Champagne who replaces
Pascual Ferry. Unfortunately their work is not their best, it looks a
bit unpolished at times although it still does the job. It's a shame
that Ferry couldn't actually draw this issue.

Anyway, this story was solid enough but I would say it lacked something.

Grodd has escaped from the Speed Force and is going to take the Gem
Cities as a symbol of his superiority despite that both humans and
gorillas were about to make peace. Grodd doesn't care about anything but
his destiny and is able to take over both species easily but something
is still wrong, there are no other being who can prove to be a worthy
rival of him.

*Kneel before Grodd!*

WOW! Brian Buccellato actually manages to make an entertaining story,
I'm pleasently surprised about how much his writing has improved lately
with both this and his work on The Flash Annual. The portrayal of Grodd
is quite fitting and even adds some layers to his motivations, he is a
really savage beast who considers everyone else beneath him and doesn't
even think about killing others to prove his superiority. The strongest
point here however, is how this goes accord to the Flashpoint story
Grodd of War, in a world without nobody who become a worthy adversary
Grodd doesn't know what to do. Don't expect a lighthearted story here my
friends, this a pretty brutal tale.

I have one complaint though and is not really a complaint as much as
nitpick, but I was really excited to see a new version of the Rainbow
Raider named Chroma being introduced just to be disappointed a few pages
later. Mr. Buccellato, you're a tease.

Chris Batista handles the pencils and his work is excellent. I'm glad
that all The Flash villains issues have so many great artists working on
them.

One of the best issues from this run. This makes Rogues Rebellion a much more promising read.

Nothing good can come from a kid being forced to become something greater.

Werner Zytle has been told all his life that he's deserves to be royalty
and has been blamed for not being it at the same time. Used as a guinea
pig to an experiment to turn him into a metahuman grants him the power
to obtain what he always wanted and get vengeance on the ones who ruined
his life, no matter who.

This is probably the darkest issue that Jeff Lemire has plotted on this
series so far. Count Vertigo is presented as a man who needs to believe
that he's better than others to survive which turned him into a monster
who will destriy anyone who gets in his way. This issue makes you
immediately invested on the character and it worked excellent as both an
origin story and an interlude to the next chapter of the main story in
Green Arrow.

Andrea Sorrentino handles the art once again and it's amazing how
consistent and beautiful his art is. He hasn't delivered a disappointing
work yet.

An universe pretty similar to the one we currently have where beings
called Lightsmiths used the power of emotions to do whatever they
wanted, there was a disadvantage though, the light came from somewhere
and it wasn't infinite. A scientist tried to warn the Lightsmiths to the
danges of using the light indiscriminately but they didn't listen and
after a while the life in the whole universe extinguished leaving alive
just the scientist who tried to prevent this from happening.

I'm surprised about how much I loved this issue. I like Robert
Venditti's run but I have also been criticizing it for not being that
creative nor impressive, this issue changes the whole perspective of his
run, he doesn't negate everything what happened on Geoff Johns' run
about how the Rainbow Corps work but he adds some new mythos to it and
actually presents quite intriguing questions about how the power of
light affects the whole universe.

Relic has also an interesting backstory and motivation to his actions which makes his current actions much more relatable.

Rags Morales' art is beautiful, is good to see him back in form after his rushed work on Action Comics.

Anyway, best issue from Venditti's run. Lights Out looks much more exciting now.

The villains from the DCU are running rampant now that the world's
greatest superheroes are nowhere to be found. The Crime Syndicate lead
by Ultraman is threatening every being in earth to follow their rules if
they want to survive, some agree with their vision, others are
completely against it and to make his argument stronger Ultraman is
going to unmask one of the most prominent heroes on the world. What does
Lex Luthor has to say about this? He clearly doesn't like it.

This is the main event that DC has been planning for a while, does it delivers?

I would say that, writing-wise at least, it does. Geoff Johns implements
a varied amount of characters to tell their different perspectives
about the current events, the best aspect of this story is that Johns
makes each villain express themselves in a few lines of dialogue and
that's sufficient to understand their personalities and motivations,
this is a perfect way to make new readers invested into the antagonists
from the DCU without needing to research much about continuity. That's a
pretty well done job.

Another point i need to comment is Lex Luthor's portrayal. I think Johns
made Luthor's point of view pretty understandable just based on his
opening narration, not to mention that he made him pretty terrifying and
incredibly threatening. I also have to mention how Ultraman's powers
and weaknesses work, we knew his past incarnation was powered by
Kryptonite but know he actually has to inhale it to get his powers,
that's a pretty interesting twist and his weakness is also perfectely
logical too.

The weakest factor here I would say is David Finch's art, "inconsistent"
is the word I would use to describe it. At some points it looked pretty
good and quite fitting for the plot, in some pages however, it looked
rushed and lacking polish, plus he got some characters really wrong.

So what do I think? It pretty much delivers everything what I was
expecting from a Johns' event and it even adds some surprises, Finch's
art is a mixed bag but fortunately it doesn't ruin the experience.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Not only about the main theme of the title from this blog but also about several topics in life, my deal is that sometimes I become too invested into certain aspects of it, being about work, education, hobbies, relationships, etc. Is pretty difficult for me to forget about things even if I want to.

One of those hobbies are comics. Like most people I have been reading comics since I was a child and have a certain vision about what's the most important factor that should be implemented in any work related to the medium: fun.

One may think that fun could refer to merely one aspect of a comic but to me it refers to several ones: Dialogue, dynamics, action, creativity, pacing, story, long term planning, art and probably more points that I'm forgetting.

However, lately I have seen that a lot of comic fans and even the so called "professional reviewers" tend to disregard most of those aspects and just focus on a few of them, or even none of them, to give either a positive or negative opinion based simply on personal bias.

That's why I'm creating this blog to try to give a mostly unbiased opinion about the releases from every week so you can take some perspective in consideration and see if those titles actually are in common with your own personal tastes.

I want you to know that I don't consider myself a reviewer, far from it, I'm just a comic fan who gets excited about the industry and wants to comment about my favorite series and even those that doesn't appeal that much to me to give enough information to my community.

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Do you want to read about the newest comics at the earliest hour possible on wednesday?

I obsess over it so you don't have to. I will bring my thoughts early on the morning always so you can have an idea what to check or not. Plus, there will be analysis, retrospectives and a lot of crazy rambles about franchises and series.

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